This is probably the oldest car we’re likely to see at CC, and so it’s also not surprising that it’s an electric. And quite a nifty one at that. This little city scooter is remarkable well engineered, with some really nice details. It’s a highly functional way to maximize the electric car’s inherent limitations, at least until very recently. This would have been a perfect way for a doctor to visit patients or such, in the very compact towns and cities of the late 19th century. In other words, a quiet, clean horseless buggy without a cantankerous primitive gasoline engine. No wonder electrics outsold gas cars in the earliest days. And four wheel coil suspension! A closer look reveals a few other interesting details.
We got a very thorough explanation of this vehicle from no less than the builder’s grandson. Andrew Riker (full history here) was a true pioneer of the electric vehicle, building his first in 1894, and quickly becoming one of the largest producers of the genre. Everything from little runabouts like this
to very large trucks were built at the Riker plant.
Rikers went racing too, and in 1901, his stripped-down Torpedo set a world record for electric cars, 57.1 mph, which stood for over a decade. But Riker saw the writing on the wall, sold out, and joined Locomobile in 1902, where he designed gasoline engines cars.
The lead-acid batteries (now golf cart 6 volts) are in the two compartments, in front and rear. Top speed was around 15- 20 mph, and range up to 50 miles was claimed, but more realistically 30 – 40 miles. Quite acceptable in the urban environment of the time. Here’s the motor, attached to a reduction gear on the rear axle. Differential? Not in the usual sense, anyway. Maybe one of the wheels has an over-run pawl. Or maybe one wheel drive.
Here we see the other side, and what a nicely detailed suspension this has, with a truss to strengthen the main rear trailing arm. Riker built his first car out of some bicycles, and this one shows the use of bicycle frame tubing, reinforced with this truss. Pretty slick.
Up until now, the electric vehicle really has only made sense in this type of configuration, a very lightweight urban run-about, accepting the inherent limitations of speed and range. Here is a NEVCO Gizmo, which was built right here in Eugene some ten years or more ago. Same basic idea: a few lead acid batteries, and room for one person. There’s still a few running around here.
Great little example of the simple origins of the electric car. Nice!
I could (and should) do a CC on my neighbor’s 1917 Detroit Electric, twenty years further advanced. He and his wife and a friend were just sitting in it parked, enjoying a nice day from the car’s spacious and airy ‘sitting room’. He took me for a ride, and it all felt strangely futuristic.
Interesting to draw the analogy to the Gizmo, it’s true. There’s a Gizmo just a few blocks away from my house in fact. Not safe in an SUV world, not fun, even in town – not a real car.
PS: A two-place electric roadster makes great sense now, thanks to the new lithium-iron-phosphate batteries and electronic controls. Not a supercar like the Tesla, just an electric Miata sort of thing, at Miata’s weight with modest performance and excellent handling. A full power train including 60-mile batteries is under $10K off-the-shelf now. I may just have to build one myself.
I’ve seen one of these (Detroit Electric) at a local car show in Mornington VIC which regularly sees really interesting vehicles turn up. Everything from a NSU Spyder with the rotary engine to a Pinzgauer to a Stutz Bearcat. Don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Riker before though.
Paul re the speed record, how about Camille Jenatzy & La Jamais Content with 65mph in 1899? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jamais_Contente
The quadricycle style of car stuck around for another 20 years or so, ICE powered of course by then and often extended to seat two passengers in tandem. A step or two below a Model T or Austin 7, good for traveling around town or perhaps a bit beyond. The 40mph range is still a decent number too, just ask the Volt or should I say the reasoning that lead to that electric range being provided.
Every time people get all worked up about BEVs as the technology of the future, I remind them that my Great-grandmother owned a Baker Electric back before the First World War. Back then, before the starter motor was common, women favored electrics so that they did not have to deal with the balky and dangerous hand cranks.
ICE won out for good and sufficient reasons. There will be no BEV renaissance.
Time will tell.
IMO time has told. There’s no miracle of chemistry waiting in the wings for the future. There’s a place for electric cars, but they will never fill the role of an ICE car.
That’s not entirely true. Cheap gas and the Ford Model T killed the electric car. But the internal combustion engine is in no way a better solution, only cheaper and more convenient. Hundred and hundreds, if not thousands of billions of dollars have been poured in research & development to make internal combustion engines more efficient. At the same time that electric car evolution have been at a stand still for the last hundred years. A Baker Electric is not really that far from a GM Volt in range.
Yeah, get back to me when the refuel time is 15 minutes or less. Until then, all the optimsism and enthusiam and hype won’t make a BEV a functional replacement for the current state of the ICE art.
That’s a level 3 charge. Leaf has a socket for that, and they’re starting to show up. We have two downtown.
Cheap gas and the Ford Model T killed the electric car.
True enough. But we need to explore what is “cheap gas.”
In the Depression, gasoline sold for a nickel a gallon. In a day when workers at the Ford plants, made $5. A DAY.
And that was by NO means the average. The Ford men were blue-collar royalty…the average wage, for people who were working, was less than half that.
So…using today’s wage scales, $3-a-gallon gasoline would just fit that. A year ago, gas was selling less than that. Now it’s more; but it could and will come down…as soon as we get our heads out of our neither regions and start doing our own drilling.
I do not see much future in the electric car. For local errands, a golf-cart sort of electric does make sense, for people who have the storage space and can afford it. But as primary transportation, it’s a non-starter.
As then. Remember, cars in this era were more a luxury…you needed to get somewhere far away, you took the train. Today…things are different.
Electric cars benefit from the same cost curve as other electronic devices. Today’s EVs are the early adopters, the $5K PCs. As volume goes up, cost goes down, as component manufacturers compete and invest in large-scale manufacturing. Breakthroughs in power electronics, induction and brushless DC motors and battery technology have been huge.
Battery technology especially has finally taken off, thanks to laptop and cellphone markets. Lithium-iron batteries for cars are 3 to 5 times smaller and lighter than lead-acid now, at the same cost, and the cost continues to drop. Nanoscale technology has yet to kick in.
Range comparisons to century-old buggies are silly. Compare the freeway performance, safety and comfort of a Volt or Leaf to a Baker or Detroit Electric.
So what’s the point of an EV? 1) Electric torque is massive and instant, really ideal for a high-performance car. 2) EVs have very few parts to fail or wear out, they last forever. 3) EVs run on any source of energy: nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, oil, natural gas, even coal. Well-to-wheel efficiency is better than ICE even on oil.
Another chart for this post.
Great piece. The story of these pioneers needs to be told and remembered. This was part of the “Gold Rush” days of the auto business.It bore an uncanny resemblance to the Gold Rush days of the internet not too long ago.
A fun mystery/thriller novel my neighbor lent me is “The Detroit Electric Scheme” by D. E. Johnson. It’s set in Detroit around 1910, and vividly takes us into that Gold Rush world. The fictional son of the Detroit Electric founder is framed for murder (by stamping press) and has to solve the crime to stay out of prison. Some great scenes inside the operation of the company, and a visit to the Detroit Auto Show. I think you’d like it.
Great post especially now as EV are the ‘new’ technology its certainly not reinventing the wheel merely an upgrade from these pioneering models.
This Day in History at history.com says today’s the anniversary of the first US auto race. “On September 7, 1896, an electric car built by the Riker Electric Motor Company wins the first auto race in the United States, at the Narragansett Trotting Park–a mile-long dirt oval at the state fairgrounds that was normally used for horse racing–in Cranston, Rhode Island.” Undoubtedly a car much like this ’97 Riker.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/electric-car-wins-the-first-auto-race-in-the-united-states